“You shouldn’t use vocabulary words too big to get out around your tusks. And I’m not a traitor. Earth is my home, and these are my people. I’m protecting them.” I thought of the people dropping below their tables and wondered how many had been hurt in the shooting, hurt because these jackasses had been after me. I pushed my blade deep enough to draw blood. “What prompted you to shoot me today?”
“The Pride’s got an extra good bounty out on your head. Freshly issued. You better stay out of town, bitch.”
“Thanks for the tip. Very magnanimous considering you were trying to shoot me thirty seconds ago.” I started to lean back—I could sense the other two orcs coming, only two blocks away and running toward us—but I paused. “You know where that silver dragon is living?”
“Screw you.”
I dug Chopper in deeper, not enough to sever an artery, but I bet I was tickling his glottis. He hissed with pain.
“I have no qualms about killing someone who opened fire on a restaurant and probably put people in the hospital—if not the graveyard. But if you give me a lead on the dragon, I’ll let you live.”
“How should I know? Dragon lairs are in caves, not in cities. You want a lead, go for a hike.” He jerked his head away, banging it against the window hard enough to knock out the already-shattered glass.
But there was nowhere for the orc to go—that side of the van was flat against the street. He roared, yanked out a knife, and twisted in his seat, lunging toward me. I had little choice but to defend myself, and with Chopper already near his neck, I sank it in, cutting his throat. His body stiffened, and the knife fell from his fingers as his life’s blood spurted from his neck.
Frustrated with the situation, I climbed out of the van and leaped to the sidewalk. Pain erupted from where the bullet was lodged in my hip. I swore and barely kept from screaming and pitching to the ground.
Why couldn’t I protect humanity without being at war with every magical being on Earth? The irritatingly familiar tightness came to my chest, but I couldn’t stop to dig out my inhaler yet.
My senses warned me seconds before the other two orcs ran around a corner and into view. I was waiting with Fezzik out and pointed at their chests and Chopper in my other hand, blood darkening the blade. It glowed a soft blue, always pleased when it had the opportunity to do battle.
I kept my injured hip turned away from the orcs, hoping they wouldn’t notice it, though I knew they would smell the blood. They should smell their dead comrade too. Maybe that would make them pause.
The orcs saw me and stopped altogether. I had no idea what expression was on my face, but it must have promised their impending death. They lunged back around the corner and ran back the way they had come.
As the sirens drew closer, I walked toward the nearest alley. My grimace deepened as I sensed another magical aura, this one sailing in from above. By the time I was halfway through the alley, Zav had landed somewhere close and shifted into his human form.
When he stepped into the end of the alley, he was impeccable, as always, not a short curly black hair out of place, not a smudge on his dark robe. I had orc blood on my disheveled clothes, and my own blood was making my shirt stick to my side.
“What?” I demanded, barely remembering not to point any weapons at him. We were allies now, at least for as long as we both had a use for each other.
“The proper address is, Lord Zavryd, you honor me with your presence—how may I be of service to you and dragonkind?”
“I’ll keep that in mind should the day ever come that I want to kiss your ass. What do you want?”
He squinted at me and then looked over his shoulder. At his ass?
I would have laughed if I hadn’t been gritting my teeth in pain. The bullet had done more than graze me. I could feel it inside, grinding against my hip bone. I’d have to go to the hospital to have it removed, and I’d have to do it soon. As I’d learned in the past, my fast healing became an impediment if it healed around a bullet lodged inside me. A military surgeon had cut me open again the last time that had happened.
“I came to see how you are progressing with your research. Dobsaurin had a message delivered to me.” Judging from his tight jaw, it hadn’t been a party invitation with the address to his cave on it. Zav’s gaze shifted to my hip.
I wasn’t favoring it or holding a hand to it, and my black tank and duster hopefully hid it, but his sense of smell had to be at least as good as an orc’s.
“You are injured again,” he stated.
“Yes. You’re as perceptive as you are magnificent.”
“You are mocking me?” His dark brows rose.
I couldn’t tell if it was surprise or indignation or both. Ally, I reminded myself. Ally.
I forced myself to lift an apologetic hand. “Yes, but I mock everybody who gets in my way. It’s a bad habit. I’m sorry. I’m in pain and that makes me cranky. I’m also worried about all the people who might have just been hurt—or worse—because some idiot orcs got an itch to take me out and make some money.”
No, that wasn’t even it. It was because I’d gone to the Pardus brothers’ house and turned them into enemies. Looking back, I wasn’t sure how I could have avoided that, but someone with more smarts and more charisma surely could have managed it. I’d only made things worse for myself and for anyone standing next to me.
A wave of dizziness washed over me—how much blood had I lost?—and I stumbled over and pressed a hand against the cool brick wall for support. I closed my eyes, struggling for equilibrium and calm, but thoughts raced through my head. I had to check on Nin and the people at the restaurant, and if I didn’t want to deal with talking to the police, I needed to hobble out of the area. And back to my Jeep and to the hospital. I didn’t even know where we were. Miles from where I’d parked by now, I was sure.
It was only because I sensed Zav coming closer that I opened my eyes. And almost pitched over because he was less than a foot away. Only the wall kept me upright.
I planted my hand against his chest, remembering the times I’d been close to him before. It had been so he could touch my head and put his stupid compulsions in my mind. That tingle of power that always emanated from him stirred goosebumps on my skin, and I grew aware of the hard muscle of his chest through the fabric of his robe. He was another shifter who opted for the bodybuilder persona when in human form.
“Whatcha doing?” I asked as casually as I could manage, though having him so close unnerved me.
He looked down at my hand, a faint glow to his violet eyes. He was probably appalled that I was touching him. Presuming to touch him. “There is a metal projectile lodged in your hip.”
“No kidding. I hadn’t noticed.”
“I must remove it to heal you.”
I wanted to push him away and say something flippant about how nobody had asked him to heal me, but a wave of hope washed through me at the notion of having the pain taken away now, instead of hours later in the hospital, after a surgery that I would have to pay for, since my self-employed freelancer insurance was lousy. But was it worth it to owe him another favor?
While I was waffling with indecision, he pushed my duster open and rested his hand on my hip, right on the hole in my tank top—and my flesh. I expected the touch to bring another blast of pain, but some cool magic flowed from his palm, curling gently into my wound and numbing the hot snarl of agony. It was like one of those cough-drop commercials promising soothing relief, and I could almost hear the angelic choir in the background.
A quick burst of heat punctured the relief, and I bit my tongue to keep from gasping in pain. I wasn’t gasping in front of some dragon, damn it. “What was that?”
“I withdrew the projectile.” He held up the flat bloody bullet, then flicked it onto the ground. It burst into flame and disappeared. Incinerated. “Now I will heal the wound.”
“Is it hard to heal humans when you’re used to dragons? I imagine we’re rather anatomically different.” I glanced at his face, meeting his eyes briefly, then looked over his shoulder. Looking him in the eye from this close seemed too intimate.
Besides, I needed to pay attention. We were standing in a public alley. Those orcs might wander down it at any moment. Though that was unlikely. They would sense the aura of a dragon from even farther away than I had. But the police could show up. We weren’t that far from the wreck.
Oddly, nobody entered the alley. Nobody even walked past. Was he oozing some magic to deter people?
“You are half-elf. I have spent time with elves.”
“They’re not as loathsome to you as humans?”
“They are among the most powerful of the lesser magical beings.”
Lesser. I snorted. “So you rank people and decide who’s worth spending time with by their power.”
“By their power, by what they do with their power, and by how obnoxious they are to be around.”
I could feel his gaze upon me and knew exactly what he was implying. As if he wasn’t more obnoxious than I was. In his arrogance, he didn’t even see it.
Warmth replaced the cool, and my flesh tingled with intensity. I sensed the muscles knitting together, the chipped bone being regenerated, and the skin regrowing over the wound. Even though the power came from him, my legs grew weak, as if some of it was also drawn from my own body. When he removed his hand and stepped back, I slumped against the wall. I wanted to slump all the way to the ground, but my pride—and the old pieces of gum stuck to the cement at my feet—kept me upright.
“Thanks.” For someone who hated being beholden to others, I was thanking him a lot. I didn’t like that. “Maybe next time, I’ll greet you with some ass-kissing.”
His eyebrows flew up, and he took another step back. “I do not wish to be intimate with you.”
“That’s not what I meant, but thanks for clearing that up. When you talk about kissing someone’s ass, it’s an expression. It means you’re sucking up, currying favor.” There we go. The way to define an idiom is by using a bunch more idioms, right? “I just meant that maybe I’ll call you Lord Zavryd the next time you plop down in front of me.”